


The Deep Dark

by Brumeier



Series: Bite Sized Fic 2018 [57]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angels, Demons, Drug Use, Established Relationship, M/M, Oracles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-08-19 13:54:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16535831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/pseuds/Brumeier
Summary: LJ Comment Fic for Food prompt:Stargate Atlantis, John Sheppard/Rodney McKay, "You want me to eat WHAT?"In which John takes Rodney to consult with someone who might be able to tell him what he is.





	The Deep Dark

“Is this really necessary?” Rodney asked for the hundredth time.

It was Saturday night and he’d had a lot of plans. Most of them involved John being naked, with or without extras like whipped cream and vibrators. Sometimes Rodney worried he was turning into some kind of sex fiend. Mostly he was okay with that.

“Since your new best friend hasn’t been forthcoming on the issue, yes,” was John’s terse reply.

“One soulgaze hardly makes us besties,” Rodney protested. Not that he knew for sure if that was true, since he’d only had the one angelic encounter. Evan had said he’d be in touch, but so far the dimpled angel had been a no-show.

_Especially once they find out what you are._

Rodney really wanted to know what that meant. So did his demon lover, which was why they were driving into the city after dark, to meet with some otherworldly something-or-other that could help answer that question. 

“We need to know what we’re dealing with,” John said. For the hundredth time.

Rodney was pretty sure he was more spooked by John’s reaction to his angelic encounter than he’d been himself. His life had gotten really complicated.

“I’m not going to have to sign anything, am I? Because I’m not giving up my soul, or my firstborn, or enslaving myself.”

“It’s my favor, not yours.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better,” Rodney said with a sigh. “I don’t want you signing anything away either.”

John reached across the console and gave Rodney’s thigh a squeeze. “It’ll be fine.”

It didn’t feel fine. It felt scary. There was a whole underside to the world that Rodney had never known about until he met John. He’d come face-to-face with a Prince of Hell (John’s father) and caught a vision of Heaven during his soulgaze with Evan. Something told Rodney that was just the tip of the iceberg.

When John went to put his hand back on the steering wheel, Rodney grabbed hold and kept it where it was. John didn’t say anything, just twined their fingers together.

Traffic was light, rush hour long since over, and Rodney tried to remember their route in case a hasty getaway was called for. They ended up in a seedy part of town, the buildings rundown or burnt out or both. There were a lot of prostitutes out and about, and Rodney couldn’t tell if they were men or women, or both.

“Your friend can’t afford to live in a better neighborhood?”

“The Oracle isn’t my friend. She’s more of an acquaintance. And she can fly under the radar easier here than anywhere else in the city.”

That was all well and good, but that didn’t make it any easier to get out of the truck. Despite the fact that Rodney’s boyfriend could bust out talons and horns if things got dicey, who was to say a mugger on this particular street couldn’t do the same?

They parked in an underground lot for ten dollars an hour, which seemed outrageous. John held Rodney’s hand, kept him close, but they made their way down the sidewalk unmolested until they reached an old storefront. The windows had been painted over with dark paint and there was a very subtle sign tucked in the corner pane of the door glass that simply said _Oracle_.

“Not much for advertising, is she?” Rodney asked nervously.

John knocked, and it was a full three minutes before the door swung open. A mountain of a man filled the doorway, bulging arms crossed. He sported an impressive head of dreadlocks, little bits of metal in them glinting in the light from the street lamp.

“Hey,” he said in a rumbling voice.

“Hey,” John replied. “I made an appointment.”

“Who’s your friend?”

“This is Rodney. He’s why we’re here. He’s cool.”

Rodney was feeling the opposite of cool, actually. Dreadlocks stood aside to let them in, and it was a tight squeeze because the entry way was so narrow. It smelled like cinnamon, tea, and a kind of dry mustiness. Like old paper.

The large room – once possibly a thrift shop or music store – had been transformed into a hookah den, loaded up with brocaded cushions in deep reds and blues, tapestries on the walls, and tables holding various types of hookahs. The place was empty, except for one old guy in the corner who was reading a leather-bound book while he occasionally took pulls off the hookah pipe.

John and Rodney followed Dreadlocks past the hookah room and down a narrow hallway. The flowered wallpaper was faded and peeling, the rug on the floor so bare in spots that he could see the wood floor underneath. Just before the end of the hall there was a door with an old-fashioned cut-glass knob, which revealed stairs going down.

“Uh, are you sure about this?” Rodney hissed at John. “Bad things happen in basements.”

John squeezed Rodney’s hand. “Relax, okay? It’ll be fine.”

“Just because you keep saying that doesn’t make it true,” Rodney pointed out. 

They descended the stairs, wooden risers creaking with every step. The lighting was dim, the musty smell getting stronger the farther down they went. The stairs ended on a wide landing, and Rodney’s mouth gaped open when he saw they were on the second floor of a massive library. 

“Didn’t see that coming, did you?” John murmured in his ear, clearly amused.

The huge room was oblong in shape, bookshelves reaching up to the ceiling and accessible via a series of ladders and the landing that wrapped around the whole room. The floor was polished wood that glowed in the flickering light of a hundred or so candles. Open flames in a library seemed ill-advised, but Rodney wasn’t about to bring that up.

Someone was sitting cross-legged on the floor, hands palm-up on their knees. Was that the Oracle?

Dreadlocks led them along the landing, which thankfully had a fairly sturdy-looking metal railing all the way around, to a circular staircase. When they got down to the floor of the library, Rodney could see that the someone was in fact a woman. Her skin was golden and unblemished, and she had brownish-red hair that curled past her shoulders. Her eyes were closed, her posture flawless.

“Wait here,” Dreadlocks said. He went to the woman and crouched down, murmuring something in her ear. She murmured something back, and Dreadlocks left through a door on the opposite side of the library.

“What now?” Rodney whispered.

“We wait,” John replied.

The woman barely seemed to be breathing. She was perfectly still, not a single twitch or spasm that would indicate she was anything more than a lovingly rendered statue. Rodney wondered what she’d be able to find out about him, and if it was something he even wanted to know.

“Let us share some tea,” the woman said, startling Rodney out of his thoughts. She was standing now, looking loose and comfortable in a pair of yoga pants and a man’s button-down blue shirt. Not what an oracle might be expected to wear.

“Teyla. Thanks for agreeing to see us.” John greeted the Oracle by pressing their foreheads together. “This is my friend, Rodney.”

“A pleasure,” Teyla said. Rodney wasn’t sure if he was supposed to do the forehead thing too, but she just nodded at him, so he nodded back and that seemed sufficient. “Come. Tea.”

Dreadlocks re-appeared carrying a tray laden with an earthenware tea service. At one end of the library was a living area, complete with a cherry wood dining table. They all sat down and Teyla poured. Tea wasn’t really Rodney’s thing – he was pretty sure his blood was mostly coffee at this point – but he took the proffered cup and added several sugar cubes to it.

“What is it you wish to know?” Teyla asked as she sipped her tea.

“Rodney was visited by one of the Heavenly Host,” John explained. “He indicated that Rodney isn’t completely human, but not in what way. We need to find out before my people do.”

John’s people being power-hungry, upwardly mobile demons who’d either exploit Rodney’s otherness or try to destroy it if it wasn’t useful to them.

“The danger does not only come from Below,” Teyla said. “If there is value, others will seek it out. It is good you came to me.”

She held out her hand and Dreadlocks took a tiny covered bowl off the tea tray and handed it to her.

“Rodney and I must Journey together to find that which you seek.”

That didn’t sound good, a feeling that was reinforced when Teyla took the top off the little bowl to reveal dried slivers of something red. 

“You want me to do _mushrooms_?”

“These are not mushrooms. They are the roots of the ruus plant, which is native to my realm. Only once your mind is clear and open to me can we discover that which is hidden.”

“I can’t do this,” Rodney said. “I don’t take drugs. I mean, yes, stimulants from time to time because my schedule can get a little crazy and I need to stay awake for exams, but never psychotropics! Do you know what that could do to my brain? I can’t –”

“Hey,” John said. He slung his arm across Rodney’s shoulders. “It won’t hurt you. I promise.”

“I would not harm you,” Teyla said, sounding just a little insulted. “This is the only way.”

“I’ll be right here with you the whole time,” John said.

Rodney wanted to leave, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew John and Teyla were right in that they needed to find out what Evan knew and wasn’t saying. Forewarned was forearmed, as the saying went. And he trusted John, he really did.

“I’d feel better if you had your game face on,” Rodney said, feeling a little pathetic to even ask.

John looked at Teyla, who nodded, and then transformed. His black, feathered wings snapped into existence, horns erupted from his forehead, his eyes turned to liquid black, and his hands curved into claws. John’s demon tail snaked up the inside of Rodney’s pant leg and curled around his calf. It was ridiculous that such a display would set Rodney’s mind at ease, but it did. He really needed therapy.

“Okay. Let’s do it.”

Rodney held out his hand and Teyla placed one delicate sliver of ruus root on it. It was no bigger than a nickel. She took another for herself.

“Place it on your tongue and let it dissolve,” she instructed. “That is when the Journey will commence.”

It tasted a little like red wine, only more bitter, and it turned his tongue slightly numb as it dissolved. Rodney watched Teyla from across the table, waiting for some kind of sign. He got it when she blinked, her eyes turning from warm brown to solid white.

Rodney tried to turn and say something to John, but he was falling. Down into the deep dark, where there wasn’t any light or any sound or anything at all but the rapid beating of his own heart.

_The dark was impenetrable, a thick and cloying thing. But it wasn’t without sensation. Rodney could feel John’s hands on him, the scrape of his claws, the brush of his wings. He had the sudden, overwhelming sense memory of fucking John and being fucked by John at the same time, a wave of immense pleasure washing over him._

_“You love him,” Teyla’s voice said, seemingly from all around him and inside his head simultaneously. “Though he is not human.”_

_“I’d do anything for him,” Rodney replied, his own voice echoing._

_“Show me what you saw during your soulgaze.”_

_He couldn’t tell if his eyes were open or shut, but he thought he closed them. He called up the image of the silver city, gleaming under dual suns in the middle of the sea. He remembered how it looked, a futuristic utopia. He could practically smell the salt from the waves that lapped against it._

_“It is quite lovely.”_

_Rodney wondered how it compared to the city John described in Hell, the one made of obsidian towers surrounded by lakes of molten lava._

_The silver city rushed towards him suddenly, making him feel queasy – or was that just the dried ruus root? – and then Rodney was looking at a room filled with electronic equipment and lab tables. There was a man there dressed all in white, his hair sticking up and his eyes wide behind round glasses._

_“Co to je?” he asked in an unfamiliar language. “Do prdele!”_

_The scene fell away and Rodney fell with it, back into the deep dark. There was no fear, no sense of velocity or inertia, just the knowledge that he was plummeting away from the silver city. And a flash of white that might’ve been an angel’s wing._

_“Teyla? Hello? John? John!”_

_Rodney reached out for John, picturing him as he’d been when they first met: naked torso gleaming with oil, black wings filling the room. Dangerous and sexy, but also goofy and sentimental. He could be exotic and utterly domestic, all in the same day. And Rodney was in love with him, had been for a while now._

_A noise swelled in the darkness. Tha-thump. Tha-thump. Not Rodney’s heartbeat this time, but John’s. So familiar after the many nights they’d spent curled up together in Rodney’s bed, Rodney’s head resting on John’s chest. Tha-thump._

_Rodney let himself fall, knowing John would be there to catch him._

*o*o*o*

When Rodney woke up, he was lying next to John on a long, wide sofa. John was back in human form except for his eyes, which still gleamed like liquid tar. Teyla was stretched out on cushions nearby, puffing on a hookah. They were still in the library.

“Welcome back,” John murmured. He pressed a soft kiss to Rodney’s mouth. “You doing okay?”

“I think so.”

“What’s Pi to the thirtieth decimal?”

Rodney rattled off the numbers, relieved that he remembered them all. No brain damage from the hallucinogenic root.

“So what’s the verdict?” Rodney asked, looking between John and Teyla. “What am I?”

“You are a Conduit,” Teyla said. “Between Heaven and Earth. It is very rare.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It means,” John said. “That you have a direct line to all the knowledge of the universe.”

Teyla nodded. “It is very dangerous for you, Rodney. There are many who would kill for access to Heaven’s repository. And those Above who would like to close that connection permanently.”

If she was trying to sound ominous, she succeeded. John always made the denizens of Heaven sound like assholes who jealously guarded all their knowledge and didn’t like sharing it with anyone. Evan clearly figured out the conduit thing. Did he tell his superiors? Was Rodney in danger of getting randomly smited – smote? – to keep him from sharing what he knew with his demon boyfriend?

“Can you turn it off?” he asked Teyla, though in point of fact he wasn’t sure that was something he wanted to let go of. What if that connection the reason he was so smart? What if that was where he got ideas like zero-point energy and stabilizing wormholes? And was Rodney's intellect any less valuable if it was augmented by a Heavenly connection?

“I cannot. You would have to appeal to a higher court, as they say.” Teyla cast her eyes upward.

Yeah, right. Like he was going to pursue the issue with Evan and his haloed buddies. They were probably pissed about it, and the last thing Rodney needed was some kind of metaphysical lobotomy. 

“Can we go home now?” Rodney asked, tilting his head back to look at John. 

“You sure you’re okay?”

“No. But I’d rather not be okay in my own bed than down here with the books. Um, no offense or anything.”

“None taken,” Teyla said, sounding amused.

Rodney was just a little unsteady on his feet, but John put an arm around his waist and held on to him. They took their leave of the Oracle, both of them doing the forehead press this time, and followed Dreadlocks back out to the sidewalk.

“We’ll figure this out,” John said, sounding determined. “I promise.”

Rodney wasn’t sure that was a promise John could keep, but he didn’t say anything. He needed to believe it too.

**Author's Note:**

>  **AN:** What? An installment without sexytimes? Nooo! LOL! Well, I promise there will be some next time.


End file.
